Who's Going to Watch You Die?
by DeathByMushrooms
Summary: Of silver medals, haunting rememberances, and masking every feeling you have. Love wasn't supposed to be like this. Set after the season four finale, Alex/Izzie ... sort of.


**Who's Going to Watch You Die?**

**A/N:** Inspired by the Death Cab for Cutie song, _What Sarah Said _which is also from where the title is taken. Download it immediately. This is set after the finale, and a bit into the future, though not much. Three or four months, maybe.

**Disclaimer:** _Grey's_ is Shonda's, definitely in no way mine. The lyrics below are written by Ben Gibbard of the band mentioned above.

_I knew that you were a truth  
I would rather lose  
Than to have never lain beside at all..._

_Love is watching someone die  
So who's gonna watch you die?_

He was never a charmer, of that she was certain. She had only known him a year of his twenty-six (or was it twenty-seven? She realized she didn't know his birthday.) on Earth, but she knew that he wasn't the guy girls wanted to be with. Maybe he was the guy girls had one-night-stands with, but there was nothing _special_ about him that made anyone want to commit—at least not since _her_, the one he had lost. And while he might _pretend _that commitment was something he wasn't interested in, she had always seen beneath that. Maybe that was why she had gone for him in the first place, before any of their heartbreak—that mysterious "hidden" portion of his soul that was locked off to everyone, but oh-so-obvious in her eyes. But there was no getting around the fact that he was nobody's gold medal anymore. He certainly wasn't hers.

She had longed for the moment she _knew_ someone was her soul mate for as long as she could remember, and she admitted to having felt something like the faint spark of love—at least in comparison—a few times before—one instance manifested in Alex. But that was nothing to what she felt the first few months of her internship at Seattle Grace Hospital. Denny Duquette had been so much more than that. More than she had expected, and really more than she needed—especially given the outcome.

Her mind often wandered to his scent—even half-dead in a hospital bed, the smell of nature never left his hair, his hands, his clothes... Now simply going outside was a difficult task. And for the matter of his scent, her mind also wandered to that generous smile with more than a hint of lechery woven in, to the way his T-shirts always stretched in just the right places, to the way he actually _wanted_ to hear how her day was going, how he always listened, how he knew her inside and out before they had even spoken. He was on her brain, always.

He was on her mind in the wee hours of the morning when she went to binge on Ben and Jerry's in the darkness of Meredith's kitchen. He was on her mind when she dried her body with a soft towel after a shower. He was on her mind when the light hit the floor a certain way in the hospital room that had become their sanctuary—or any other room like it. He was on her mind when she had to spell—or sometimes simply _say—_any word from the endless games of Scrabble. He was on her mind at Cristina's wedding—and even more so when there was no groom to be had. He was on her mind _every time_ she entered the Denny Duquette Memorial Clinic. He was on her mind when she slept with George. He was on her mind when they decided to be friends. He was on her mind when she held Alex in her arms after the pain of losing Rebecca. He was on her mind with each new patient that rolled into Seattle Grace. And he was always on her mind when someone died.

Sometimes, she would forget he himself had died. She would hear the best gossip, or get _so angry_ with Cristina, and immediately her first thought would be to tell Denny. And other times still, she would be completely overwhelmed by that familiar feeling of his character. The feeling that had been reserved for his presence all of her life; a void that had never been empty but was suddenly filled when she first laid eyes on him. A most peaceful feeling would then overcome her, as if he had wrapped his arms around her from behind, but it was gone as soon as it had come. And sometimes that feeling was what got her through the day. But aside from those fleeting instances, she was staggeringly reminded that he was _gone_.

She had heard, though she couldn't remember where, that love means watching someone die. She had filled that saying with Denny, the absolute love of her life, the man to whom no one could ever begin to compare. She knew that that feeling—if the word "feeling" could come close at all to the sensation Denny's presence had evoked—would never come again, no matter how hard she or anyone else tried. Though being perfectly honest, she couldn't ever envision herself _wanting_ to try.

And then the worst happened, and Alex lost Rebecca. It mirrored her own situation far too much for her comfort. She knew that if Alex had ever been "Mr. Right" for anyone, it had been for Rebecca. And she had more than been his equal. She made him human, tolerable. And when she died, Alex lost it. He wasn't even up for being a pain, as he always had been before. So they turned to each other—after all, they had been in love with one another once, right?

That's why she had Alex. Why he had her. Why they were together at all. No one understood—not a single person they knew—not even George, who _always_ understood_. _But she understood, and he understood. They were silver medals because their golds had been lost. They found in each other what some might call a morbid solace, but what was the closest to "happy" either would ever come again. Someone to be there when it was their turn to die.

**A/N:** First time writing for anyone but Derek or Addison. Comments please? I might get inspiration to write more about the couple, who knows. I'm a big fan of theirs. So any reviews of any kind would be greatly appreciated.


End file.
